NMHS MISSION:
How We Lost the Kaiulani-and What We've Been Doing About It! by Peter Stanford
The Kaiulani, launched in 1899, was the last American ship to carry cargo under sail around Cape Horn. NMHS was founded in 1963 to save her.
After I had introduced myself I -asked the man facing me across his desk why he had done me the honor of summoning me to meet him. I had been expecting to meet one of his deputies. "Mr. Stanford," he said, "I just wanted to meet the damned fool who ever thought we 'd approve this loan."
But the loan was authorized by a special Act of Congress, I was asked to lead the Society in 1970. But they were an active said. Morgan Guaranty was standing by to issue the money as lot, involved in projects ranging from the publication of John soon as the Maritime Admini stration approved the form of the Lyman's historic newsletter Log Chips (still issued occasionally loan. That just wasn ' t go ing to happen, said Andrew Gibson , by NMHS volunteer Nonnan Brouwertoday), to sav ing the bark Chairman of the Maritime Administration. He went on to Elissa of 1877 from the scrappers in Greece, to delivering the ex pl ain that the Ship Mortgage Program was set up to guaran- classic four-master Falls of Clyde (1878) to Hawaii. This gang had been of enormous help to me in my work at tee loans to build new ships for the US Merchant Marine, not to drag an old hulk from some godforsaken corner of the world the South Street Seaport Museum in New York. In fact, that 's how I first got to know them, by their helpful volunteer to be set up as an historical curiosity in the US. And that was effectively that. Chainnan Gibson was wrong, contributions to our local proj ect. The Society had begun to pursue special projects in that of course, in at least two important ways: First, what the Congress adopts should be carried out when it is signed into spirit before the loss of Kaiulani, founding the Counc il of law- as our bill had been. Second, the Kaiulani was not just a American Maritime Museums in 1972 to improve communicuriosity, she had important work to do, eas ily the most im por- cation within the field, and starting to publi sh Sea History in tant since she had been launched into the ice-fi lled Kennebec the same year to encourage wider interest in the fi e ld . from Sewall 's yard at Bath, Maine, seventy-one years earlier. Don ' t Give Up the Ship! She was to be a museum ship, educating Americans yo ung and old in how we built a nation from the sea and what it was As the recent National Maritime Alliance confe rence in Boslike along the way. Moored in the Potomac, she would remind ton in Septem berthi s year emphasized, our heritage in hi storic Was hington lawmakers in their marble c ity, of the high hopes ships is wasting away, and several important ships are in and hard work of previous generations, and her tall masts actual peril today. The tide of public interest we work to bring into being now would challenge the city with the sense of a wider world, older must fl oat not the Kaiulani, but all our ships. It is our task to put and , in some ways , wiser than the one we know today . A few years later another Maritime Commi ss ion Chairman, real citizen fo rce behind the cause. Then it will be clear when we go to government that we mean what we He len Bentley, conceived the idea of a say. We will shoulderthe burden- but we National Bicentennial Fleet, to tour the need government to play its role in supnati on's seacoasts and major lakes and rivers in 1976. She enthusiastically empo1t of the public purposes we serve. We braced th e plan to have a restored are working now on plans for a national effort, which we have given an hi storic Kaiulani lead the parade. But thi s noble name: "Don 't Give Up the Ship." idea was rejected by the admini stration , and in 1974 the axe fell : the Kaiulani To this needed national effort we bring was scrapped where she lay in Manila one great asset: our NMHS membership. Today we have not 300 but 12,200 memBay . The Navy brought home her fo rebers and the count is growing as I write. foo t and other skeletal remains. In retrospect we realized we had reOur members are unusuall y potent in this work, because they share the gener1ied too much on high-level government ous outlook of the founders and they lift promi ses and had not developed enough their eyes beyond whatever important citizen interest. Indeed, hardl y anyone specific proj ect they are in , to see the knew about the project or that it had failed . We resolved to reach out more whole horizon of the heritage we serve. widely to generate public interest in hi s- The tug Mathilda (1899) is swung ashore in This is work we do effectively, because tori c ships. And we realized that we had Kingston , New York , gift of NMHS Chair- we as a Society were born to it. just one asset to work with- the mem- man James P. McAllister to the Hudson That 's why building up our memberRiver Maritim e Museum--itself established ship base is the most important work bership of NMHS. There were just 300 members when I a few years earlier by an NMHS committee. before us now. 1
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SEA HISTORY 7 1, AUTUMN 1994